Professor Scarab stood at the front of the classroom. "We were going to take a test to see how well you've learned your potions material since the year started, but I haven't been able to put one together due to the cold, so we'll just learn how to make cookies instead." With a few waves of her wand, the classroom changed. The cauldrons were replaced with brick ovens, lit and ready to go. Baking ingredients and implements appeared in front of everyone as well.

Barb did not hesitate to come out of her tube and sit on the work surface next to me, eager to see how the cookies were made or help me make some. Considering how smart she seemed, I wouldn't have been too surprised at the latter.

"We'll start with simple sugar cookies. First, the dry ingredients. . ."

I left potions class with a happy Barb resting in my arms. "I swear, you eat more than I do sometimes." Her response was simply to let out a sugary burp, crawl into my robes a bit, and nestle up against my body. "At least save some for me tomorrow, alright?"

"Did Barb eat your whole batch?" Laura asked as she came over to me and started using Scourgify on my uniform.

"All the edible ones." I quickly returned the favor and used Scourgify on Laura's uniform. "Most of mine came out too goopy."

"Mine came out burnt. I put the sugar coating on top. They still tasted bad. Are you looking forward to Christmas?"

"I don't know what to expect."

"I don't know what I'll be getting this year. A new dress would be nice."

"Blegh. Not me."

As soon as everyone was sitting down, Professor Smith started the class. "Alright, everyone, today's the test. You'll find it in front of you, in case you're wondering where it is."

"Audible gasp!" A random girl shouted.

"You have until the end of class to finish it. Blank answers will be counted as wrong, even if it's because you hit the time limit. You are not permitted to help anyone. Once you turn it in, you're free to leave. Grades and results will be announced tomorrow."

I picked up a quill and started on my test. "This'll be easy enough."

I turned in my test and left class fifteen minutes early. I wasn't the first one done, but I was still done ahead of a lot of my classmates. Noir looked frustrated at her test, which I wasn't surprised by. "Let's see how we compare, Noir."

Lily was already at the table, engrossed in a magic book, and I sat with her. "How do you think you did, Weiss?"

"I think I did well. I did live as a no-maj until a week before I came here, so I have that going for me. What about you?"

"I'm fascinated by no-majes. And I maaaay have failed the class a few times. I'm aceing all my magical classes, but this one, just no-maj studies, that one confuses me. Just. . . How do they do it all without magic?"

I shrugged. "I don't know how it all works. I just know that there are people that do things that make things work."

"Your test is simple: enchant multiple objects that will only work when put together. The enchantments don't have to be undetectable, but they have to be inert when alone. Get started." Moments later, a wide steel bracelet and multiple gems were in front of me.

"Hmm. . ." There was a socket in the bracelet, clearly made to hold just one gem. "Illusions. I'll do that. Those are fun and easy enough. I think I know what to do with this one." I picked up the light blue gem and thought through the enchantment I would put into it.

Professor Samuels met us at what had become the usual indoor meeting place. "It's cold, there's still a ton of snow, but that's no reason for us to not take our flight exam outside. Get your extra winter wear on and meet me out there with your brooms." I got my scarf, earmuffs, and gloves on in short order and went outside, broom in hand, along with the rest of my classmates. "Excellent. Group up by house, Cross-V formation, five laps around the castle!"

At her order, we formed up into our groups on the snow. Noir was at the head of the group, a position she'd secured through complaining when one of the boys took the lead, and in under a minute, we were in the air, not far behind the Perseverantia group.

The only warning we had for obstacles halfway through the first lap was when we saw them appear for Perseverantia, breaking up their formation. "Loosen formation!" Noir shouted just as we started getting into the obstacles. We didn't stick tightly to the assigned formation, instead focusing on simply avoiding everything that was getting in our way.

Fireballs, icicles, stone slabs, strong winds, lightning, and mirages all appeared at random as we made the laps. Multiple times, I saw a Perseverantia student get knocked off course by an obstacle while the rest of the flock went on.

Virtus charged through our formation, and was soon right up there with Perseverantia, the two groups now facing even more obstacles. Students were getting knocked around more viciously, and falling more frequently, yet they refused to split up.

As many as were falling from the Virtus and Perseverantia groups, Scientia's formation also lost a few students to the obstacles. Thankfully, I wasn't one of those who fell.

As the laps went on, I never noticed any Callidus students pass us. If the merging of two groups made the obstacles they faced worse, then it was a good thing for both of our formations.

After all five laps were completed and all the students that fell were recovered, with two sent to Dr. Ocsid's office, it was time for the next part of the exam: broom tag. It was just like tag, but flying on brooms.

The next day

"We'll make cookies again today." Professor Scarab's statement was met with no objections.

With the previous day's experience behind me, I was able to make a batch of sugar cookies that were mostly edible, and met Barb's approval. I even had to fight her just so I could put the cookies into storage for later.

"I've graded all your tests, and I will keep this brief," Professor Smith said. "Only one of you got everything right. Weiss Schnee, that would be you."

"Uh, thanks," I said as most of the students applauded me.

"Do you have anything else you'd like to say while you have the spotlight?"

"No, not really."

"Very well. Moving on, there was only one student who got everything wrong, and I can only wonder how. Noir Starlight, the dubious honor is yours."

"WHAT?" Noir shouted. "HOW?"

Professor Smith was unfazed. "Half of it was because you ran out of time. And I do mean that quite literally. Everything you did answer, you got wrong, on account of putting down magic answers, not no-maj ones."

"I DEMAND A RETRY!"

"No can do, Miss Starlight." A Stupefy fired at Professor Smith did absolutely nothing. "You do realize I can deduct house points if you do that again, right?"

"WHY DOES STUPEFY NOT WORK ON YOU?"

"I'll let you puzzle that one out yourself. I can also say this: out of your whole crew, only Natasha passed the test, but barely so. Everyone else, you passed the test as well, and by a much better margin. I know it can be tricky material at times, but since no-majes far outnumber the population of the wizarding world, you are better equipped to navigate their world." A student raised her hand. "Yes, Jasmine?"

"Will you go over the correct answers with us?"

"No, I will not. Not here. Instead, I've attached papers with the correct answers on them to your tests. If you want to collect them, just ask on the way out. If you would like to go over the questions you missed, just come talk to me after supper. You can also collect your test tonight if you want." He turned his attention to me. "Weiss, since you got everything correct, would you be willing to answer their questions as well?"

I thought about the offer for a moment. "Sure."

"Excellent. Class dismissed. Noir, I want you and your crew, except Natasha, to stay." I didn't bother collecting my test, and instead left the classroom to go for a walk through the halls until lunchtime.

My solo stroll was interrupted after only a minute. "Hey, Snowflake."

I sighed as I answered. "What do you want, Natasha?" It didn't take long for us to start walking together.

"I want to know how you got a perfect score when nobody else did. Did you use some kind of memory spell on yourself?"

"No. I just studied the stuff."

"You have a no-maj background, right?"

"Yeah. I didn't know about magic until a week before classes started." I still found myself wishing I'd never touched the sword, but learning about magic was kind of fun.

"Hmm. . . Thank you for cooperating, Snowflake." Natasha turned around and left me to my walk.

I watched her leave for a moment. "What is she up to?"

"I've tried out all your projects, and all of them work," Professor Lovebreed said to the class. "You may have them back." With a flick of her wand, a bunch of boxes appeared and flew to their respective students. "You will also find notes from me inside."

I opened my box, fished out the note, and read it. "You seem to have a taste for illusions, since that's all you put into the gems. They seem to work perfectly, though I fail to see how an illusion of being on fire would be of any use. I couldn't quite figure out what illusion you put in the light blue gem, though. If you would kindly demonstrate it after class, in private if you so choose, I will adjust your grade on it accordingly. At present, B-, but only for lack of variety in the enchantments."

"Oh Snowflake~" came the taunting voice of Noir from every direction.

I turned to look where I knew she was sitting. "What?"

"I got a perfect score on my project." She held up a pendant she was wearing, a gem in the middle of it. "Just try and beat that."

I wanted to point out that the way I beat her and her crew in no-maj studies was a greater blow to her than her beating me in spells and enchanting could be. I decided to just shrug instead, and not worry about comparing our grades. "I don't think her family will take her no-maj studies test score too well. Then again, if her attitude is anything to go by, they might not care."

Jack, thankfully, provided a distraction. "Hey Weiss, would you like to see what I made?"

"Eh, sure."

He produced a pair of items. "First, a normal quill filled with normal ink." He demonstrated with a quick line on a piece of paper. "Now, observe." He put on a ring with a prismatic stripe going around it, then tapped the tip of the quill on a red section. When he made another line, it was red. Color after color, he put down on the same piece of paper, then went back to black by touching the top of the quill to the ring. "Pretty nice, isn't it?"

"It is." Multicolor pens were one thing, but that was something else entirely. "Let me show you one of my enchantments."

"Go ahead."

I put the steel bracelet on, then put the red gem in it, and it looked like I was on fire. "What do you think?"

Jack was quiet for a few seconds before he answered. "I don't see how that could be useful."

"Professor, I'd like to demonstrate the illusion you couldn't figure out."

"Go ahead." At her direction, I put the light blue gem in the socket, keeping a finger on the gem. "Hmm. . . Walk over here, please." As I walked to the right, her attention went the other way, following an illusion of myself. I and my illusion went to her side of the desk, and she turned to face it. After getting it to stand still, I waited to make my move.

As soon as she got up to look at 'me' more closely, I took my finger off and the illusion vanished, surprising her. "How is it?" I asked from her chair.

She quickly turned around and faced me, her confusion turning into an impressed smile. "A decoy. . . Very impressive. How much control do you have over it?"

"I think I can make it do whatever I want it to do. It's just an illusion, though."

"Still very impressive. B+. It's still a couple illusions, and you did nothing but that. Making yourself invisible was pretty good, but I could still hear your footsteps."

I shrugged as I got up to leave. "I like illusions."

"We're going back inside," Professor Samuels stated when we met up outdoors. "I want to see how well you do with obstacles, solo, in tighter environments. No formations, just flight. We'll take off from here. You will fly until supper." Without missing a beat, she pulled out her broom, took off towards the castle, and almost everyone was scrambling to follow her. I waited until the chaos had died down before mounting up and taking off, leaving me in the back.

Dealing with obstacles inside was very different from the same thing outside. On the up side, I only had to worry about myself. On the down side, there was much less room to move around. As I flew through the hallways, it became clear that I would have to deal with my classmates as well, and I quickly came up with a plan to mitigate that: get ahead of everyone, so that nobody could lose control and fall onto me.

With the plan made, I set it into motion, and was soon speeding past everyone ahead of me, slowing down as needed to maintain control and assess my progress.

As I was nearing the front, someone I wasn't expecting to see showed up. "Having fun, sis?"

"Jennifer? Why are you here?"

"I just wanted to see if you would like to come home after supper tonight instead of leaving tomorrow. How about it?"

I focused on making a sharp turn and evading falling slabs of stone before answering. "I have some tutoring to do with Professor Smith after supper. You can join if you want, I suppose." With that, I sped ahead, leaving Jennifier in a dust storm.

I sat down at my usual spot next to Lily for supper, and to my surprise, Jennifer followed me to the supper table, sitting down with me. I also saw a number of other unfamiliar people around the dining hall, presumably there to pick up other students, mostly in the first year section.

"So, what's this tutoring for, Weiss?" Jennifer asked, sounding disappointed. "I thought you said no-maj studies was easy."

Lily answered before I could. "She aced today's test, and will be answering questions on the subject with Professor Smith."

"Friend of yours?"

I did some quick introductions. "Jennifer, this is my friend Lily. Lily, this is my sister Jennifer."

Jennifer looked around a bit before asking Lily a question. "Fourth year, right?"

"Yeah. Weiss has helped me a lot with no-maj studies. She seems to know a lot about the topic, and is willing to help if you ask her."

"Oh?" Jennifer pulled me into a sideways hug. "Look at you, being helpful and all that. But why are you sitting here with the fourth years?"

"To get away from Noir," was my short and simple answer.

"Ohhh. That makes sense. Isn't there some kind of rule against that. . ."

"There actually isn't. Same with houses."

"Huh."

"If I may borrow everyone's attention for a moment?" Principal Mercia asked from the front of the room. "Students, as you know, you have until tomorrow evening to leave the castle. Yes, that includes the Aces, too. The Henway Express will be leaving here at midnight, and an hour after breakfast and lunch tomorrow. There's plenty of time to eat and prepare for the trip ahead. With that all done, thank you for letting me borrow your attention. I will now give it back and present you with supper!"

Once the food appeared, I didn't think about much else. After the intensity of broomstick flying, I was very hungry. "I wonder if I can ride my broom like a surfboard?"

It was after 10:30 when I finished the tutoring session and left the castle with Jennifer for the train. "I'm so proud of you, Weiss!"

"It just kind of happened," I said before yawning. "I still don't know how I was the only one to get a perfect score on the test."

"I don't think I did. Maybe I got so absorbed by the magic that I forgot some no-maj things." I shrugged at the idea.

When we reached the train, we were stopped by a portrait on the outside of the car. "Hold on one moment, please."

I sighed. "What is it?"

"I just need to inform you that, due to the expected volume of travellers, along with a slower travel speed due to the weather, bunk sharing is highly encouraged. As long as they are well behaved and cleaned up after, pets are permitted as well. Do not worry, there are wards in place to make sure nobody you wouldn't get along with can join you."

"Is that all?"

"The wards also ensure nobody gets up to any funny business in the beds. A deep Scourgify was needed on one of the beds once. I hesitate to delve any deeper into that story, but let's just say the car was rocking side to side all the way from Henway to the Platform."

"Eew." I'd been on the internet enough to know what he was talking about.

"It's also for the safety of the rest of the train. Now that that's done, welcome aboard. If you decide to use one of the sleeping cars, we have alarm enchantments in place to wake you up fifteen minutes before our arrival at the Platform."

"Thank you, sir," Jennifer said before getting onboard, not far ahead of me. As I followed her through the train, she asked me a question. "Weiss, are you okay with us sleeping together?"

"Normally, no," I pointedly answered. "But given the circumstances, I suppose there's no choice."

"Don't bash the idea of bedsharing just yet. With the right people, it can be very relaxing. This is completely platonic, and there are wards in place so you don't have to worry about anything." Soon, we reached a sleeping car. Both sides were filled with bunks, four high and about ten long. Most of the borders around the openings were green, a few were red, some were orange, and a couple were blue. All of them had black curtains with a single gold stripe going across them. "Ah, here's one."

I followed Jennifer through a green framed curtain and I noticed that the border changed to blue when she went in. "Jennifer, what do the colored frames mean?"

"Green is available, blue is occupied friendly, orange is occupied negotiable, and red is occupied unfriendly or against the rules. They're different depending on who looks at them. The curtain can tell you who's inside if the border's not green."

I looked at the curtain and saw Jennifer's name sewn into the gold line with black thread. "Do you mind if I poke around a bit?"

"Go ahead. I won't turn down any of your friends."

Before looking around, I looked inside the bunk. It was spacious, and had a large bed in it with plenty of room, including some space to stand and walk. There was even a low shelf for chests, and one was on there while my sister wasn't in sight. "I don't even know why I'm surprised at this point." Once my inspection was done, I went over to the two blue framed bunks. The first one had Jack's name on it, along with another boy and a few unfamiliar girls' names. "Implications. They may be friendly, but I wouldn't be comfortable with them."

With one down, I went to the other blue frame. "Laura Clockarm and Phoebe Deimos. I'll ask them." I was about to knock on the curtain before I remembered that, even enchanted, it was still just fabric. Instead, I reached inside and knocked on the wall. "Hello?"

Laura poked her head out from the opposite side. "Oh, hello, Weiss. You want to join us?"

"Well, um, the other way around?" There was no way I could phrase it without it sounding weird to me. "I'll check with my sister."

"You do that." She let out a yawn before going back inside.

When I found my shared bunk, Jennifer was out of her chest, sitting on the bed and wearing her night clothes, a light blue and white fuzzy top and pants that fit her very well and looked warm. "Any luck?" she asked when she noticed me.

"Laura and Phoebe are in a blue bunk," I answered. "How about we go join them?"

"I suppose we can." It didn't take long for us to join my friends in their bunk. They were already out of their uniforms and wearing warm night clothes as well, though not as well fitting as Jennifer's. "Ah, you're friends with the Clockarms, Weiss! Well, at least Laura, but still, this is so cool!"

"Don't make me freeze you."

"I'm sorry. . . Oh, I have a gift for you, Weiss." Jennifer set her shrunken chest on the shelf, expanded it, and was soon elbow deep in a drawer. "Come on, where did I put it. . . Aha, here it is." A moment later, she produced a small wrapped package. "An early Christmas present. I think you'll like it."

I set my chest on the shelf, then accepted the present. Jennifer, Laura, and Phoebe were watching as I started to unwrap the present when there was a knock from behind me. "I'll get it." After returning the present, I opened the curtain and saw my newest friend there. "Hi, Lily."

"Hey, mind if I join you?"

I looked back and saw a mixed consensus of a shrug and two nods. "Come in, I guess."

"Weiss was just about to open an early Christmas present," Jennifer said before giving the present back to me. "This is going to be even better with another of your friends!"

I decided to just get it over with and opened the present as quickly as I could. Inside was a black and purple set of fuzzy nightclothes, with slippers, all in the same pattern as Jennifer's. The colors and lack of frilliness appealed to me quite a bit, in spite of the fuzziness. "I like it. It's. . . Simple enough."

"And now we have contrasting matching pyjamas!" Jennifer stated as she pulled me into a hug. "I'm so happy!"

"Freeze." At the word, she backed off. "I'll go change now." With some space, I went into my chest to put on the new clothes.

"Weiss seems a bit. . . Standoffish with you, Jennifer," Lily observed.

"She's still new to all this. She got her acceptance letter the day we adopted her, a week before school started, so she hasn't been with us very much. It was at the same time my brother, Mason, went off to his own charter school."

"Talk about bad timing."

"Couldn't have done worse if we tried."

"Miss Snowford?" Phoebe asked.

Jennifer turned to the Virtus student. "That's my mother's name no wait it isn't I guess you're right. What's up?"

"I went to school with Mason before coming to Henway and Weiss. . . She spooks me a bit sometimes with how similarly she acts to him."

"How so?"

"She's kind of edgy, doesn't seem like she wants to be at Henway, apparently likes black and purple like Mason does, knew what to say to get Jack to shut up, and showed up right when Mason left."

". . . Huh. . ."

"I find it hard to believe that so many things can just line up like that."

"Well, sometimes, they do. In fact, let me give you an example. . ."

After taking a minute to get used to the fuzzy nightclothes and another two to wrestle Barb off of me, I left the chest and found Jennifer telling the other girls a story. ". . . And while the student playing the mime did survive the show, he had to be taken to Dr. Ocsid to get every bone in his legs removed and regrown. I've had trouble looking at potting soil the same way since then."

"Oh. . . That. . . That's weird," Laura said. "And that was during your first year?"

"And my second and third year. Exact same circumstances each time, but different people."

"What did I miss?" I asked after closing my chest and setting Myrtenaster to the side.

"A crazy story," Lily said.

"I don't need to know anything else."

"Let's get some sleep," Jennifer suggested.

It didn't take long for the five of us to pile up in the bed, with me somehow winding up in the middle. "This. . . This isn't so bad," I decided as I lay there among friends and family, soon falling asleep.